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Abstract The Radiative‐Convective Equilibrium Model Intercomparison Project (RCEMIP) is an intercomparison of multiple types of numerical models configured in radiative‐convective equilibrium (RCE). RCE is an idealization of the tropical atmosphere that has long been used to study basic questions in climate science. Here, we employ RCE to investigate the role that clouds and convective activity play in determining cloud feedbacks, climate sensitivity, the state of convective aggregation, and the equilibrium climate. RCEMIP is unique among intercomparisons in its inclusion of a wide range of model types, including atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs), single column models (SCMs), cloud‐resolving models (CRMs), large eddy simulations (LES), and global cloud‐resolving models (GCRMs). The first results are presented from the RCEMIP ensemble of more than 30 models. While there are large differences across the RCEMIP ensemble in the representation of mean profiles of temperature, humidity, and cloudiness, in a majority of models anvil clouds rise, warm, and decrease in area coverage in response to an increase in sea surface temperature (SST). Nearly all models exhibit self‐aggregation in large domains and agree that self‐aggregation acts to dry and warm the troposphere, reduce high cloudiness, and increase cooling to space. The degree of self‐aggregation exhibits no clear tendency with warming. There is a wide range of climate sensitivities, but models with parameterized convection tend to have lower climate sensitivities than models with explicit convection. In models with parameterized convection, aggregated simulations have lower climate sensitivities than unaggregated simulations.
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Implementation and Exploration of Parameterizations of Large‐Scale Dynamics in NCAR's Single Column Atmosphere Model SCAM6
Abstract A single column model with parameterized large‐scale (LS) dynamics is used to better understand the response of steady‐state tropical precipitation to relative sea surface temperature under various representations of radiation, convection, and circulation. The large‐scale dynamics are parametrized via the weak temperature gradient (WTG), damped gravity wave (DGW), and spectral weak temperature gradient (Spectral WTG) method in NCAR's Single Column Atmosphere Model (SCAM6). Radiative cooling is either specified or interactive, and the convective parameterization is run using two different values of a parameter that controls the degree of convective inhibition. Results are interpreted in the context of the Global Atmospheric System Studies ‐Weak Temperature Gradient (GASS‐WTG) Intercomparison project. Using the same parameter settings and simulation configuration as in the GASS‐WTG Intercomparison project, SCAM6 under the WTG and DGW methods produces erratic results, suggestive of numerical instability. However, when key parameters are changed to weaken the large‐scale circulation's damping of tropospheric temperature variations, SCAM6 performs comparably to single column models in the GASS‐WTG Intercomparison project. The Spectral WTG method is less sensitive to changes in convection and radiation than are the other two methods, performing qualitatively similarly across all configurations considered. Under all three methods, circulation strength, represented in 1D by grid‐scale vertical velocity, is decreased when barriers to convection are reduced. This effect is most extreme under specified radiative cooling, and is shown to come from increased static stability in the column's reference radiative‐convective equilibrium profile. This argument can be extended to interactive radiation cases as well, though perhaps less conclusively.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1933523
- PAR ID:
- 10581487
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Geophysical Union
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
- Volume:
- 16
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 1942-2466
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1029/2023MS003866
